I pity the young children, really I do. We make "movies" about Terminators and smart AI for entertainment purposes, but in the future, with obstacle-dominating robots like HRP-2, it will be their reality.

HRP-2, you see, takes obstacles and makes them into tools; uses them to its advantage. Take this video example. In it, HRP-2 uses a table to assist with a sitting down motion. It also kicks a ball, spelling the eventual doom of pro footballers the world over.

Primitive, to be sure, but it's an important first step for future robots that will be using our stacked corpses as a platforms to steady their assault rifles. [New Scientist via Engadget]